Sharaa, now the de facto leader of Syria, said in a BBC interview last month that he will does not rule out the possibility of the Russians staying, and he called the relationship between the two countries “strategic.”
Moscow seized on his words, and Foreign Minister Lavrov agreed that Russia “has a lot in common with our Syrian friends.”
But untangling the ties in a post-Assad future may not be easy.
Rebuilding the Syrian armed forces will require either a completely new start or remaining dependent on Russian supplies, which will mean at least some kind of relationship between the two countries, says Turki al-Hassan, a defense analyst and retired Syrian army general.
Hassan says that Syria’s military cooperation with Moscow dates back to before the Assad regime. Almost all the equipment he has was made in the Soviet Union or Russia, he explains.
“From the beginning, the Syrian army was armed with Eastern Bloc weapons.”
Between 1956 and 1991, Syria received around 5,000 tanks, 1,200 fighter jets, 70 ships and many other systems and weapons from Moscow worth more than $26bn (£21bn), according to Russian estimates.
Much of this was in support of Syria’s war with Israel, which has largely defined the country’s foreign policy since its independence from France in 1946.
More than half of this amount was not paid after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in 2005 President Putin wrote off 73% of the debt.
For now, Russian officials have taken a conciliatory but cautious approach to the interim leaders who have ousted Russia’s longtime ally.
Moscow’s UN representative, Vasyl Nebenzia, said the recent events marked a new stage in the history of what he called the “brotherly Syrian people.” He said Russia would provide both humanitarian aid and reconstruction support to allow Syrian refugees to return home.
